


Encounters at the Witch House

by Measured_Words



Category: Arkham Horror (Board Game), LOVECRAFT H. P. - Works
Genre: Creepy, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Horror, Magic, Witches, Yulechat Challenge 2014
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-13
Updated: 2014-12-13
Packaged: 2018-03-01 08:33:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2766563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Measured_Words/pseuds/Measured_Words
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marie realized quickly once she came to Arkham that her world was forever changed.  Her grand-mère's death had raised many troubling questions, but she thought  she knew where she might find some answers...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Encounters at the Witch House

**Author's Note:**

  * For [barometry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/barometry/gifts).



Encounters at the Witch House

"Take this." The woman pressing a book into Marie's hands looked like a total wreck. Her fashionable dress blue was torn, and even in the low light of dusk it was clearly that both it and her skin were spattered with something that looked like blood. It was the look in her eye, though, that Marie found most disconcerting. "And stay out of French Hill. There's something happening at the Lodge. I have to go."

And Marie was left with another ancient tome. Shoved into its pages was a loose sheet she hoped was just parchment, covered with symbols and glyphs. She wished she didn't know what they meant. She wished she didn't know exactly what the other woman was talking about.

Since she'd come to Arkham, Marie had met a few others like Jenny Barnes – people who'd been caught up in the terrible secret war raging in the town's streets. Most, like Marie herself, had been dragged in against their will. But it didn't seem to matter where she went in town. Trouble found her.

It had started with her grand-mère's death, just the week before. Marie had meant to come out and visit her while she lived, but something had always come up, somehow. She wondered about that now, and about the notes and charms she'd found along with the knife, tucked under a loose floorboard in grand-mère's rented room. There were too many strange happenings that she couldn't put down to coincidence anymore, and that included Jenny's injunction to stay out of the neighbourhood she'd made her goal. But Marie wasn't interested in the Silver Twilight Lodge. Asking around about her grandmother had pointed her in another direction: the house that had once belonged to Keziah Mason. 

Keziah Mason had been accused of being a witch in her lifetime. According to the stories, Mason wasn't the type to make love charms, and the powers she was rumoured to have dealt with were far darker than even the cruelest of the loa. Maybe it was true – maybe in a place like Arkham everything got a little twisted, whether it was the tales people told, or the people themselves. Whatever the truth, Marie knew something about the witch that had drawn her grand-mère to this place. 

Like the boarding house, Mason's house – the Witch House, as the locals called it – was on the eastern edge of town. They weren't far away from each other, as the crow flew, but there were no streets connecting the two and Marie had to backtrack a little through Southside to reach her destination. She proceeded carefully, the knife her grand-mère had left her clutched in one hand. The other was tightly clenched around the parchment Jenny had given her. If Jenny was right, there might be more than just shadows to startle her along the way. The boundaries of the world were less solid than they should have been, and at the weakest points things could slip through that didn't belong.

Marie passed into French Hill. The Lodge was between her and her goal, and she moved carefully past it, keeping to the edges of the alleyways. She thought she saw something out of the corner of her eye, some great lumbering shape with writhing tendril arms. The vision was unnerving, and she clutched her knife more tightly whispering words of a charm she'd found scribbled in her grand-mère's notes. The evening mists drew close around her, and shielding her from whatever the creature might be. Marie hurried on her way.

She hesitated as she reached the street where the house sat. The lot was overgrown, and it looked like the wilds at the edge of town were trying to swallow it whole. Or something was – not all of the trees looked entirely natural to her. But what had given her pause was something else entirely: there was a man standing outside of the house, looking up at it contemplatively. He looked relatively normal, in a drab beige overcoat and a slouchy fedora, but Marie was still wary. Even if he wasn't as mad as the robed cultist she'd had to battle when she'd tried to have a look around the magic shop – Ye Olde Magicke Shoppe – there were enough mundane dangers in the world to cause a young black woman on her own to be wary.

The man turned her way, frowning thoughtfully. One hand went to his hip. Marie, knowing from experience that this town gave one plenty reasons to be wary of unknown things in the night, stepped out under a streetlight where she could be easily seen. She didn't sheathe her knife, keeping it hidden behind her back. The man seemed to be more interested in the tome Jenny had given her.

"Hey," he said warily.

"Hey yourself." Marie knew her voice had power, and she could put people at ease if she wanted. She definitely wanted to now. "You – ah – don't live here, do you?"

"No ma'am." He shook his head, reaching for his belt again. Marie must have flinched, as he held up his hand placatingly, then drew out a wallet and flipped it open, flashing a badge her way. She stepped closer to read it – New York Police. "Detective Thomas Malone. And – uh, excuse me, but have you seen this symbol before?"

He pulled a loose page from his notebook and held it up for her. It was familiar – but the fact that it had clearly been executed in her grand-mère's hand gave her greater pause.

"You mind tellin' me where you found it?"

Malone gave her a long, considering look, then shrugged and passed her the sheet.

"I was corresponding with a woman who lived in town, consulting on a case. She sent it to me. When I wrote to ask her about it, I never heard anything back."

She'd seen the strange sigil, a sort of pentagram with symbols set into each point of the star, in her grandmother's notes – but she'd also seen it in another one of the books Jenny had given her. It might be some kind of ward, or part of a summoning spell, but Marie didn't know for certain. She was just muddling through, relying on instincts that were becoming more and more disturbing. Looking back up at the detective, she shook her head.

"If it was Estelle Lavolière – then that was my grandmother. I'm afraid to tell you that she passed."

Malone nodded. "I'd heard that, ma'am. My condolences." He paused briefly before continuing. "She'd been helping me with a case, at least with some parts of it. That's where the symbol comes into it. Did she ever mention anything about it to you?"

Marie felt a shiver run down her spine – her new instincts screaming at her to pay attention. The timing of her grandmother's death couldn't be a coincidence. She had to accept that knowledge if she wanted to have any chance of... she wasn't sure what. Surviving? Stopping whatever was coming? She'd taken a chance on Jenny, after all – maybe she could take a chance on Malone as well. "Grand-mère left behind a whole heap of notes, detective, and other clues besides. Some of them relate to that star. It's part of some kind of spell, I think, but what it's meant to do I'm not quite sure. It's for calling something, I think – something old, and very evil."

There was a glimmer behind Malone's eyes, there and gone in an instant. Fear, Marie thought. She hoped. Fear she could make sense of – it was familiar.

"I thought as much," he said, sighing and putting away the book. He didn't move to take back the symbol, though. "I've seen something like it before out in Brooklyn..." Malone shook his head. "Well, ma'am, if you don't mind – was it Mrs. Lavolière's notes that brought you out here too?"

"Well in any case," she answered, giving a little shrug, "I'm hoping I might find some answers. It's Miss Lambeau, by the way – Marie Lambeau."

Malone looked up at the dilapidated old house, with its sagging windows, peeling paint, and untold secrets, then glanced purposefully at the knife she'd still been trying to hide. "Well, Miss Lambeau, if you'd care for some company, I'm hoping to find some of the same." 

There was an oppressive energy around the house – she felt it choking her, pressing into her mind. Marie wanted to run screaming back into the streets, but Malone put a steadying hand on her shoulder.

"Did you feel that too?" She looked back up at him as she spoke, realizing that the compulsion hadn't been her own instincts. Her flight would have sent her straight back into the tendril-like arms of whatever nightmare lurked out in the streets by the Silver Twilight Lodge.

Malone nodded, and his hand was shaking, when he drew it back. She didn't blame him at all. Setting his jaw, he moved past her, into the atrium. Marie followed quickly, so that she almost ran into him when he stopped suddenly and crouched down. Looking down, she saw the chalk outline and, more disturbingly, the trail of clotted green ooze that trailed away from it under the floorboards.

"Has this got to do with your case?"

Malone let out a long slow breath. Marie had felt the tension of the place ease when she spoke up as well – the silence had been almost as oppressive as whatever force was trying to affect her mind.

"Maybe." He shook his head and looked up at her. "Can I be straight with you, miss?"

"I think so. If you're gonna tell me there's more going on in this world, and outside of it, than most folks are willing to accept – you won't be telling me anything I haven't figured out myself."

"There are a lot of people who don't want to accept that kind of thinking. I run into it a lot on the force. Yeah, sure, there's a lot of nonsense out there – just superstition, old wives' tales, and the like. And people get all mixed up together in New York. Makes it easier to brush it all off, I guess. And maybe it is all crazy, but it's not all wrong."

"There's been crazy going around Arkham for a while now. Maybe a good long while – I know there's others in town who see it too. It's all building up to something." She hesitated, but Malone was listening earnestly. "It’s not just everything I’ve seen – I can feel it. And it's stronger here."

"I...feel it too, miss," he admitted. "Mrs. Lavolière told me about this place – said that the witch who lived here forged a connection with some other dark place." 

"The Abyss." She's seen the name in her grand-mère's notes, but hadn’t been quite sure how it was connected.

Malone nodded, looking back along the trail of green. "A few days ago, some kids found a body in here. Looked like some kind of ritual killing. The Arkham police handled the scene, but it's got some similarities to something that happened in Brooklyn a few years back that, well, never really got resolved. I figured it might be worth checking out, and maybe I could get some real answers this time."

"So they've already been through the scene? That green... whatever it is. Is that in the report?"

He shook his head, and Marie tightened her grip on her knife. Malone pulled his revolver, stepping closer to the place where the trail disappeared. He was sweating – probably trying to be brave for her – but he gave the floor a good stomp. Nothing happened, though they both held their breath for a long moment. 

"I think it's loose." He crouched down. Marie passed him her knife, taking his revolver in return to cover him while he slipped the blade between the planks. One of them lifted, revealing a cavity below. It smelled rank, and Malone pulled a face. "There's bones and more of that green slime." He reached carefully into the opening with the knife, lifting something up with the blade. "And this."

Marie's first thought was that it was some kind of gris-gris – the slimy little bag probably held more bones, and maybe some herbs of power. Whatever its contents, it felt strongly malevolent. She felt a spike of adrenaline when Malone cut it open, spilling its contents on the floor. There were bones, as well as teeth that couldn’t possibly be human and an old coin that rolled across the floor towards her. Carefully, she bent to pick it up. It was silver, blank on one side, and the other scratched with a familiar design.

"I think I've seen this before." Marie beckoned Malone out of the atrium and into the room beyond – a dilapidated parlor with a little writing desk. He followed with a glance back at the hole, flicking the remnants of the green ooze off the knife. It slid off the blade in two clumps, like a replicating amoeba. She tried not to think much harder about what it was, or where it had come from, or the fact that it seemed to be spreading again. Instead, Marie drew out the latest book Jenny had given her when they'd met up in the Southside streets. The spell had been marking a page. 

"Look here." The symbol in the book was nearly identical to the one Malone had shown her, with one exception. In addition to the sigils in the points of the pentagram, the center of the star displayed the symbol from the coin. "It's meant to open a door to some other place. To let something through."

Malone, looking over her shoulder, shuddered and closed his eyes. "I've seen things, Miss Lambeau. And we can't... we can't let that happen."

"No, we can't." Answers were starting to fall into place – it went along with what Jenny had told her, with the notes she'd found in her grandmother's room at the boarding house, the mad cultist she'd encountered: something was trying to get into their world. The books she'd looked through had hinted at the existence of ancient terrible forces that ruled the stars long eons ago. Something in her blood made her sensitive to them, let her harness just a hint of their power, as her grand-mère had. But if she could, she vowed to use it for good, to hinder rather than help those dark forces. But to do so, she knew, would mean further opening her mind to their influence. It seemed quite a lot to ask from a simple jazz singer, and she wished her grand-mère was still around to give her more direct guidance. She closed the book. "I need you to tell me more about your case, so we can try and see how this all makes sense."

"My case." Malone looked bitter, but shrugged, almost resigned. "A few years back – I had a case. Some crazy rich guy smuggled a bunch of illegals into Brooklyn and built himself a cult. Got killed for it – that's the official line. This cult though, they were on to something. You can't sell that sort of line to the chiefs though. They just brush it off as crazy oriental nonsense. But it's not. They opened a way into one of these... other places, like you said." He hesitated, wary, but Marie was still listening. "I saw it. Maybe... I don't know, it's all mixed up. Maybe I was even there. It was awful. All full of monsters and – the things they did to those poor people, what they turned into. It makes me just sick to think about it."

"That sounds terrible," Marie agreed, but his story just further entrenched her feeling of foreboding. "And now?"

"They had me off work for a while – said the bust shattered my nerves. You can't forget that sort of thing though. You start seeing it everywhere, not knowing what's real, what's crazy, what's a little of both. So I tried to find people in the know. Ones who weren't trying to make things worse. The university here's got sort of a mixed reputation on that front, but they put me in touch with your grandmother. The things she showed me – I could tell that something was getting a little more active. Then I heard about the case here. I really am sorry about your grandmother, miss."

"I think that spell can help us – if we can't stop that portal from opening, I think we can close it. And maybe," Marie turned the coin over in her hand, "maybe if we can find out more about what's happening here, we can even keep it closed."

"You think?"

"I don't know yet. I've been learning about an awful lot of things I never wanted to know since I came to this town. But I think it can be done."

"But this place – it's just one door, isn't it? There are others..."

Marie nodded. This whole town was thin, vulnerable. "We're not alone though. There are other folks in town trying to shut this down. If enough of us can keep safe, keep our heads... Maybe we can stop it."

Malone nodded, though he didn't look terribly reassured. "So – we keep looking here."

"I think that's best for now."

They traded weapons back, proceeding through the house carefully. Part of the walls had been scrawled with some kind of old writing, but neither of them could quite make sense of it, save to guess that some of the glyphs might be Egyptian. The living room was empty, but the air felt thick and cloying, and the shadows seemed to hang heavier in the air. They shared a look – this is where it would be, and time was drawing short. There was still one more place to explore however: the attic.

Malone mounted the narrow staircase first, revolver drawn, and he beckoned Marie up after making sure there was nothing lurking in the dark, oddly angled, corners. It had already been evening when they'd entered the house, and now moonlight spilled in through the garret window. There didn't seem to be any electricity up here, but there were a few candles in the candle sticks that Malone proceeded to light. 

"Not much here save some old books." He picked up one and passed the other to Marie. The cover was enough to make her shudder. It was made of a soft, supple leather, molded too-realistically into the semblance of a woman's wrinkled, glaring face. Her fingers brushed across the lips as she opened it – they were plump, and warm, and she could too vividly imagine the sensation of hot breath across her wrist.

The text inside was an illegible scrawl of alien letters, yet the meaning of the words pressed into her mind all the same. They had the same weight and presence as the force that had tried to overwhelm her when she first came inside the house, but this time she could not shake it off as easily. Malone was too engrossed in the tome he had picked up to provide any timely distraction. She turned the pages, hearing a voice in her mind that she was sure must belong to the book's author, Keziah Mason.

The witch spoke of the gate, of the key, of the alignment and angles of the stars. There were drawings that tore their way into her mind, scaring themselves into her memory. The madness of the author was contagious, but in that madness there was also insight. Marie's mind had to be opened enough that she could see, that she could grasp at some meaning and intent beyond human consciousness. When she could finally tear her sight from the pages, it was only to confirm their most terrible revelation – from the window, she could see the planets hanging below the moon. 

"Miss Lambeau?"

Malone was staring at her, looking disconcerted. She realized that her hand was closed tightly around her knife. She'd closed the book and drawn it across the face without being aware. Greenish black ooze dribbled from the torn lips, but in the back of her mind she heard Mason's echoing laughter.

"It's all right," she whispered in her most soothing tone, dropping the book. "I'm all right." Marie shook her head. That wasn't true at all. "I know now – what we've got to do." Another glance out the window confirmed it, and she turned and headed for the stairs. Malone, moving more slowly, trailed after her.

The shadows in the living room were swirling, coalescing into a void. A cold, baleful, wind issued forth from the portal, carrying foreign scents and sounds. Malone recoiled, but Marie could sense the power in the atonal humming. She hummed back, rounding out the notes and drawing them into a more fleeting, human, melody.

"Something's coming through," Malone called out, firing into the blackness.

Marie had seen it, a shiny and elongated form gleaming in the dark, but her music helped her steel her mind. Malone's wild shots managed to graze the creature, eliciting a high pitched screech. It clutched at its shoulder with one spindly hand, then raked out at Marie with its claw-tipped fingers. It caught her arm as she raised her knife to slash at its chitinous chest. The enchanted blade sank in deep, but it was another shot from Malone that sent it staggering backwards to collapse into the darkness. Its wounds dripped green ooze. Marie hissed in pain, but shook off Malone when he tried to get a better look at her own injury.

"The longer we wait, the stronger the energies will become. If we go through now – I can close it. Seal it for good."

Malone paled at the suggestion, and she could see the sweat beading more heavily in his brow. "You’re sure?"

Marie nodded, cradling her arm. The skin around the wound was blackening – she wasn't sure if human medicine would be of any assistance. The music from the Abyss was whistling again, calling to something in her blood. It took all her concentration to resist, to transform it through her voice. She stepped through the darkness, and heard Malone's footsteps behind her a moment later.

They emerged in a dark cavern, and the atonal notes had coalesced into more discrete echoes, hundreds of small voices. Marie couldn't control this – the best they could hope for was to pass unnoticed, to find some place safe enough to cast the spell that would bring them back out. Once she'd become attuned to the energies of the plane, she could use what she'd learned in the book to sever them from the house forever. She looked back to Malone to find him staring, horrified, at the inhabitants of the cavern beyond. Some were like the creature they'd fought, tall and spindly with grotesque bloated bodies covered in thick chitin. Others were smaller grey contorted forms, hunched over their feast – it was this more than the monsters themselves that had stricken her ally. The limbs they gnawed on were distinctly human. Marie put a hand on his arm, leading him away from the main cavern and its necrophagic bacchanal. She didn't even dare to breathe the words of her shielding spell, lest she attract their attention.

They travelled down a side tunnel, moving quietly until the gibbering receded. Malone slumped against the wall, holding his head in his hands. Marie couldn’t blame him, but she knew the worlds held greater horrors; dangers on a grander scale. She had other important work to tend to: she incanted the words of the spell, her velvet voice echoing softly through the stony passage. The darkness swirled around them again, pulling them back towards Arkham.

Marie had to act quickly once the room swirled back into view – the energies of the abyss were drawing back, and the ritual would ensure that they withdrew completely. She withdrew the coin, laying it symbol-side up on the floor. The other symbols from Jenny's book were burning in her mind, and she sang quietly to herself as she sketched them out, inverting their order. She could feel the oppressiveness of the house being channeled through her as she worked, conducted outwards through her song, through her blood, through her opened mind. She finished as the first rays of morning light shone through the windows of the Witch House. Power remained here, but the connection forged by Mason to the planes beyond their world had been severed.

Malone had pulled himself together by the time she'd finished. He retained a haunted look, but he was standing steadily enough, and offered her a hand up from where she'd been kneeling.

"It's not over yet, is it?"

Marie shook her head. "No, but it's over here." She wasn’t sure yet where their next destination would be – Arkham held many mysteries, and she'd exhausted the clues her grand-mère had left her. 

But they weren't quite on their own yet. A motorcycle engine cut through the silence of the dawn as the pair made their way outside and back into the streets. Moments later, its rider came into view. Jenny's dress, torn and blood spattered before, was barely recognizable under a layer of black ooze. The dilettante had a tommy gun strapped to her back and a determined, if feverish, gleam in her eye. "Say," she said, looking them over, "can either of you two swing a sword?"

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my lovely betas, Nary and Malkontent!


End file.
